


who even cares about reputations?

by rubiesanddiamonds



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/M, Girly!Annabeth - Freeform, Punk!Percy - Freeform, but we love her anyway so its ok, i love this au so much do not even test me, trigger warning annabeth is a stuck up bitch at the beginning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2013-11-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 04:54:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1027454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubiesanddiamonds/pseuds/rubiesanddiamonds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She decides she really likes his laugh. And his voice. And his general aura. A lot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	who even cares about reputations?

**Author's Note:**

> this was such a bitch to write i swear

Annabeth Chase liked to think she had general control over everything she did.

She chose to wear pretty pleated skirts and cashmere sweaters, light denim jeans and poufy blouses, all in ranges of pastel and any other light colours that gave her tan skin an almost ethereal glow.

She chose to wear minimal makeup, just enough pink to her cheeks to make her look dainty and sweet, a layer of clear mascara, just enough to make her eyes stand out that little bit more, not enough for it to be noticeable.

She chose to sign up for the debate team, which she soon became head of.

She chose to run for school councilor and won by a landslide, and was then re-elected three-times after.

She chose to study and revise more than was probably respectable in order to keep up her grades, and was rewarded with straight A's.

What she did _not_ choose to do, however, was develop an undeniable attraction for the punk boy in her English Lit class, with three silver rings through the cartilage of his right ear, tunnels in his lobes, a bar through his right eyebrow and a ring in the left corner of his lip.

She did not choose this because he was her polar opposite, and as much as she was loathe to admit, she had a reputation to uphold - that reputation being a stereotypical good-girl, making her own money via her very respectable part time job at the local tuition centre, even though she could well live off daddy's, appearing effortlessly smart and of course, untouchably pretty.

Liking a boy like Percy Jackson wasn't part of said reputation. Liking a boy with a football scholarship, a six pack, and played as a line-backer was. Liking a boy who had a combover and a strong jaw and wore sweater vests and achieved the same grades as her was. Liking a boy with a self-cut mohawk and tattered black skinny jeans ruined her image completely.

Her thoughts on the matter may lead someone to believe Annabeth to be aware of how people saw her and to be slightly obsessed with her reputation, and they would be entirely true. She was proud, and she knew it. She knew she thought herself above certain people, and knew it was wrong but never made a conscious effort to stop thinking that way. She knew she thought that if she took something, then redid it in her own vision, it would be better, even without any physical evidence of the claim.

Even though they were faults and flaws in character, Annabeth didn't mind that aspect of herself - liked it, even. It made her seem slightly more human, compared to the poster girl for perfection everyone in the school seemed to see her as, holding her on a completely false pedestal.

She thought all of this over as she perched on the edge of her seat, straightening out the pleats in her baby blue felted skirt, sitting with her knees and ankles touching, legs leaning slightly to the side so her feet could slip under her chair, like any proper lady; taking out her required books from her tan leather shoulder bag, and setting them all neatly in front of her, along with a pen and pencil.

She liked to be prepared for things, always organizing and preplanning before doing anything, keeping her calendar that hung on the wall to the left side of her bed updated religiously.

It was her last period of the day, before she was let out, free to follow what she had penned in for today – a gig she had promised Thalia she would attend with her, after her begging for at least a week.

Not that she was opposed to atmospheres such as the ones Thalia enjoyed – ones that included copious amounts of alcohol and music so loud it would temporarily deafen you – in fact, the few times she _did_ let her hair down (figuratively, of course, for she had been blessed as a child with the most amazing curls which she tried to use to her advantage in every way possible) she ended up doing something with her best friend that could potentially ruin her reputation she had built up over the years. (Let it be known she didn't 'let her hair down' all that often.)

Apparently the bar was holding an open night, where local bands could turn up and play for the crowd and try to gain some popularity. Thalia claimed these nights were always the best, because the bands playing were almost always amazing, and then if/when they ever made a name for themselves, you could turn and say 'well yeah, I went to their first concert, I met them, I got a photo, blahblahblah'.

Annabeth couldn't ever imagine herself doing such, since the type of music Thalia listened to wasn't the kind she wanted associated with her, even if she grudgingly did admit she rather liked it.

In the time she spent going over her plans for the rest of the day and the weekend ahead, the rest of the class had filtered in, taking up the previously empty desks around her and the few other people that came in around the same time as she.

Her seat for nearly every class was in the front row, or as close as she could get to the front. She liked to hear what the teacher was talking about, liked to be able to take notes and generally liked to understand what was going on within the hour-long period.

The only thing wrong with such a seat was that she was always visible, unlike when sitting in a back corner, out of everyone's eyesight.

It wasn't as though Annabeth was self conscious, far from it if she was honest, (and generally she was), though it was more than unsettling when she felt the telltale prickle ghost itself across the nape of her neck and the tenseness in her shoulders that followed when she felt someone watching her.

The only problem when she felt it in a lesson such as the one she was in right now – English Literature, held in room sixteen and taken by Mr. Reeves; was that usually, in any other class, when she turned around to identify the culprit, they would switch their gaze to anything else at lightning speed – the book in front of them, their lap, the teacher – and wouldn't do it again. However, in this class, she knew exactly who it was that made her nerves run on edge, who never failed to smirk smugly when she would flip around in her seat to send a glare his way, and would keep his eyes trained on her unabashedly throughout the duration of the lesson.

The watcher also happened to be the person she was undeniably attracted to for a ridiculously unfathomable reason.

The situation on the whole made her want to scream just a little.

(But of course, she wouldn't, because that would be undignified). 

\---

She took careful consideration of what to wear, not wanting to stand out like a sore thumb, and not wanting to make herself look too 'in' with the crowd that had slowly been filling up the darkened bar; it going without saying that she aimed to try and look flawless - something she did no matter where she went.

Thalia, a generally angry girl on the whole, though sweet as could be after you broke her in, grinned at her friend as they spoke over the hum of people all having their own conversations with each other; her telling Annabeth about the kind of music she'd heard played here before – some real post-hardcore guys who she had fallen in love with instantly, an few indie duos who she thought were talented but decided their type of music just wasn't really for her, a guy behind a mask who stood over a deck and made some ass-kicking beats who never introduced himself so even if she wanted to, she couldn't have looked him up. Annabeth nodded along; half listening, knowing her friend wouldn't really mind her lack of focus while she went off on one of her tangents.

They were in the middle of getting drinks – Thalia a Dissarono, grinning at Annabeth and telling her that she was being a classy girl like her now; Annabeth a WKD so she wouldn't look too frigid as to not drink something with alcohol in it, but not enough so she'd end up spread eagle on the floor in a pile of vomit – when the first band took to the stage. A group of two guys and two girls grinned nervously and waved, and the girl who Annabeth figured was the lead singer took the mike and introduced them.

They were okay, Annabeth figured. Thalia didn't seem to like them all that much, swaying along to the beat with her blonde friend but not making an effort to join in on the chorus as some of the other listeners had.

An hour or so later, just as a group of four boys were about to leave the stage, Thalia grabbed her friend's arm and told her she was going to scout out back because she thinks she is in love with their music. Annabeth nods at her and rolls her eyes, taking a sip of her second drink, telling her to have fun and to not do anything she wouldn't do.

Thalia scoffs. "I'm in love with their music, not _them_. And if I didn't do anything you wouldn't do, I wouldn't even go out back and talk to them."

Annabeth hit her lightly in the shoulder and smiled. "Go."

She did as told, winking and sending her a thumbs up after pointing at the four leaving through the double doors at the other end of the room.

In all honesty, Annabeth didn't mind all too much being alone, in public places or no. She was rather used to it, as sad as it may sound. She knew people who couldn't stand going anywhere by themselves, who dreaded situations like the one she was now in – standing around in a crowd of people who were nothing alike her, her only link to this world being a friend who had just left - and was glad she wasn't the kind of girl to freak out about looking like a loner.

She drained the rest of her drink, and another reason why she did not want to consume something with high alcohol content – she was absolutely horrendous at handling it.

Even after two drinks with next to no liquor in, she felt a little woozy, not enough to start to slur her words or begin giggling uncontrollably, but enough to make her stumble and sway slightly where she stood. She decided against another drink, lest she actually fall over.

She counted three more bands take to the stage then leave one song after, thinking that the second group weren't terrible, and that she wouldn't mind to hear them again.

She decided to go and look for Thalia, just to make sure she hadn't been used for virginal sacrifice like in Jennifer's Body or something like that. She smiled to herself, planning on telling her that after she found her. It seemed fit that a movie about a popular girl turned demon who killed guys for the duration of the film would be her favourite.

It was hard, pushing her way through the throng of people, doing her best to try and not let herself be touched by anyone, failing almost instantly when she fell against a torso after the crowd cheered when yet another band took to the stage.

Hands wrapped around her elbows and held her up, wide eyes that were painfully green, beautifully so – almost the exact shade of the sea, she thought – looked her over cautiously.

"Y'okay?" the person who held her up asked, and it took her a moment before she could place their face.

"Jackson?" she asked, straightening up and releasing herself from his grasp.

"Chase?" he asked, more incredulously than she had. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I would ask the same, but this is really your element." She had to near shout to be heard. "I'm here with Thalia. Looking for her, actually."

"Grace? Jason's sister?"

"Yeah," she said, trying to ignore the fact this was technically her first ever conversation with the strange punk boy that sat in the back of her Lit class, and it wasn't going awfully. He could have moved once he saw her fall and let her hit the floor, or pushed her away and told her to take a hike. Instead he helped her up and asked her if she was okay. She really hoped she wasn't blushing.

"How'd you know her?" he asked, ducking a bit so he could talk to her face to face.

She also tried to ignore the fact he was taller than her and that it was something she liked a lot in a guy, as well as the fact it was rather adorable that he seemed to actually want to talk to her when he could been screaming and head banging along to the music, or whatever it is guys like him did.

"Best friends since we were kids," she tells him, smiling slightly and leaning into him, whether consciously or not, she didn't know.

"I'm fairly good friends with her brother. She's older, isn't she?"

"Yeah, by like, three years or so." She wrinkled her nose and frowned slightly, her brows pulling together and her bottom lip jutting out like a child's. "She still looks like she's fifteen though, how I don't know."

He grins at her then, flashing a dimple, and she thinks he's completely gorgeous. "You're pretty cute."

Just because she has to keep up appearances, she lifts a brow and tries to control the blush she now knows is staining her cheeks.

"You've only just realized?"

"Nah," he says, a shit-eating grin still plastered across his face, the dimple in his left cheek sending her brain into a tizzy. "Thought it for ages. But before it was just: she's hot. Now its: she's hot _and_ cute."

"Hot and cute aren't the same thing."

"Yeah, but you're both."

"You aren't so bad yourself," she says before she can stop herself, and she sees his eyes widen imperceptibly as he takes in her words.

His next words come in a hurry. "How opposed are you to mindless make outs between two people who are extremely attracted to each other?"

"I wouldn't say _extremely_ ," she lies, but pulls him down for a kiss anyway.

\---

When Annabeth woke up the next morning, in a room she didn't know, in a bed she wasn't used to, she was ashamed to admit she panicked slightly.

Then something shifted underneath her - an arm, all lean muscle and just a bit of ink - and the memories of the night before swam through the haze of her just awoken state.

She moved and managed to prop herself up on her elbows so Percy's arm no longer dug into the small of her back, and looked down upon his face, dappled in the bright morning light of the newly risen sun, streaming in through the space between the standard white metal slats of the blinds on his bedroom window.

He looked peaceful in slumber, like an innocent child, despite the various piercings and the visible trident on his bicep. She decided she really liked the way the now-limp hair of his mohawk fell about his eyes, accentuating his unfairly long eyelashes that nearly reached his cheeks.

She felt she ought to hurry up and leave, while he was still asleep and she had the cover of the early morning to hide behind, worried if she left it any later she may run into someone she knew.

(She felt slightly awful for thinking that.)

Just as she was about to slide out from the warmth of both Percy's grasp and the thick quilting of his blanket he shifted again, this time to flop his trident-bearing arm over her waist lazily, like he knew she was planning to leave and didn't like it.

Sporting a smile she would forever deny, she decided it couldn't hurt to try and fall back asleep.

\---

Eventually she did, for how long she didn't know, and was woken for a second time, by Percy sliding back into the single bed, looking like a deer caught in the headlights when her eyes fluttered open.

"Sorry, I had to piss," he blurts out. "You can go back to sleep."

"S'fine," she says, then winces at her improper shortening of the phrase before correcting herself. "It's fine. What's the time?"

She guesses she should feel weird right about now, but she really doesn't. It's not even the fact this is not the first time she has awoken in a possible strangers bed, - she's pretty and popular, and despite that she may seem it, not a prude - she thinks. She guesses its more the fact she's more attracted to this boy than she first thought.

"Around nine."

Annabeth nods, and uses the back of her hand to stifle her yawn before she shrugs herself out of the cover. "Is there a bus stop near?" she asks, "I don't know if I've got enough for a taxi."

He frowns slightly. "I'll drive you home, it's fine." Then after a moment, like he was remembering something; "I'm a gentleman, after all."

She flushes red at her words from last night repeated back at her, a wicked grin accentuating his delicately tanned face - like anything about this boy could be considered 'delicate', and shoots a playful glare his way.

"So this…" he begins after a pause, gesturing between the two of them. "Didn't happen?"

She shrugs. "If you want."

She hopes he gets the subtle message underlying the words – _we are both completely different people and I don't think it would be good for either of us to pursue this_.

He seems to, if his indifferent shrug and mindless scratching of his ribcage is anything to go by. She tries not to stare. (She fails.)

"Want any breakfast?" he asks.

"Sure."

\---

She doesn't end up leaving until noon, where Percy, true to his word, drives her home like a true gentleman, which resulted in her spending an extra hour or so in the car with him outside her house, laughing and talking.

She decides she really likes his laugh. And his voice. And his general aura. A lot.

When she does finally go to leave, whether via extreme confidence or extreme stupidity (or maybe a bit of both), she leans herself over to his seat, hand finding purchase by the duct-taped gearshift, other on his prickly chin, before she pulls him down for a kiss.

As much as she likes his laugh and his voice and everything else, she likes the feel of his lips and the cool metal of his ring against her own and his slight stubble that tickles her chin as they move against each other most.

She's happily satisfied when she pulls away and there is a look of complete surprise on his face, and only slightly delighted at the barely-there pink that dusts his cheeks.

Before he could say anything, or she could do anything else that would possibly make her look ridiculous, she clambers out of Percy's beat up 60's Ambassador, waving at the murky glass of the passenger seat window and mouths "bye" before walking up to her front door and letting herself in.

Its only after she's inside and has pulled off her ballet flats and set them down neatly by her other shoes, all paired and lined up along the wall of the hallway by the door she had just entered through, does she realize that everything about last night and this morning was completely her, and also completely not.

The Annabeth she usually is would never have gotten out of a car so indelicately, _especially_ in a skirt. Ladies do not flash their underwear to the unsuspecting public. The Annabeth she usually is wouldn't have worn the same outfit she wore the night before, despite the situation - she always had to look her best, no matter where she was going or who with, and she could not do that in a rumpled shirt and a bed head. The Annabeth she usually is wouldn't have _gotten_ herself into the situation she was in last night - at least not with someone like Percy. The Annabeth she usually is would have made sure he was presentable and had a good image in case she was seen with him - not someone who was generally looked down upon by most of her more superficial friends.

Instead she was herself, or the person she usually was when with the people closest to her - the ones who didn't really mind if she snorted while laughing every once in a while.

She wasn't sure why she was like that with Percy, who wasn't close to her in the slightest.

\---

The thought still bothered her when she pulled up into the school parking lot, shutting off the engine of her audi (which was in a far better state than someone else's car) and getting out – the correct way, turning herself towards the door and stepping out gracefully, because that is how proper ladies do so and that is what she was; instead of kicking a leg out like a caveman, the other following shortly, and then using the frame of the car door to hoist herself up and scramble out.

Thalia catches up to her as she's on her way to class, asking her what happened. Annabeth had sent a brief text after she had left the building, just saying ' _Don't look for me, I've gone home._ '; then even more vague answers to the various questioning texts that were sent to her for the rest of the weekend.

Even though she knew her best friend wouldn't judge her, or tell a soul if she made her promise not to, she still kept what had really happened to herself.

(Thalia now thought that after she had left to find the band – which she did, she was quick to brag to her about, saying the bassist had given her his number as well; Annabeth had gotten herself another drink, and with both knowing how she wasn't good with alcohol, and how she didn't like to make herself look stupid in the slightest, - to the public eye, anyway - she believed that Annabeth had gotten a taxicab home without question.)

The rest of her day went by uneventfully, and Annabeth wasn't sure if she was upset or glad that she didn't see almost blue-black hair carefully styled into a mohawk and multiple piercings.

\---

She would have liked to admit she had forgotten all about the incidents that happened Friday night by the time her next Lit class rolled around, but if she had then she would have been lying; which is something Annabeth wasn't fond of.

She took her usual seat, sat in her usual position - knees and ankles touching, legs slanting to the right so she could tuck her feet in under her chair, the front of her pale grey chiffon dress patted flat over her thighs, her books open in front of her, pen in her hand and pencil lined up next to her textbook. To anyone, she looked the same as ever, prepared, in control, both worry and stress free.

As much as she would like to be all of those things, there was an uncomfortable knot in her stomach and her thoughts were on edge, for she still didn't have an answer to the question of why she acted so comfortably around someone she really shouldn't, and the cheek-warming memories of four nights ago danced along the forefront of her mind, images of kisses that were all teeth and tongue that were so charged with lust it was laughable, hands roaming and gripping and feeling and stroking whatever skin they could find.

Her mind thankfully went completely blank as Percy stepped into the classroom, in all his leather jacketed and fingerless gloved glory, walking down the aisle of desks to get to his one at the back, completely ignoring her as he shuffled past.

Not that it was any different from their regular interaction, but it hurt her for reasons she had no idea of why.

Five minutes into the lesson she felt the familiar prickle at the back of her neck, and turned, a glare ready on her pretty features. The same smug smirk that he always adorned in this situation graced his, and after a moment she turned back, knowing his eyes were still on her.

 _It never happened_.

\--- 

Her Thursdays after school were filled with debate team meets, which was a fact known by all people Annabeth considered to matter.

So when she left the school building at half five, more tired than she'd care to admit, it was safe to say she didn't plan on running in to anyone.

Of course, that meant she had to run into the boy who had quickly become all she could think about in both her waking and sleeping hours, frustrating her to no end.

He was standing in the parking lot, a cigarette to his lips, leaning against the hood of his car. The sun, setting quicker as it came closer to winter, had started to tinge the sky peachy orange and yellow, making the silver smoke being exhaled from Percy's mouth look golden the higher it rose.

He sent a nod her way as she reached her car, smirk on his lips, his dimple visible.

"Jackson," she said as a ways of greeting.

"What, we aren't even on a first name basis? There's not even anyone _around_ to witness this interaction. You don't have to pretend to not know who I am."

She rolled her eyes and exhaled heavily. " _Percy_ ," she said, accentuating the syllables and raising a brow. "Happy now?"

"Very much so, _Annabeth,_ " he replied in the same tone.

Fishing around in the inner pocket of her bag for her car keys, she asked, "What are you even doing here?"

"Detention, believe it or not."

She looked back up, faux shock written across her features. "What? A model student like you?"

"Shocking, I know," he says, his smirk turning into a full-fledged grin around his cigarette. "Who knew you got in trouble for sleeping through lessons and skipping when you don't feel like going?"

"Certainly not me," she replies, pulling out her car keys and unlocking the vehicle.

He wanders over to her as she's about to get in, a conflicted expression on his face, biting at the ring in his lip in a way Annabeth really wished he wouldn't.

"Yes?" she asks when he's a few paces away from her, one hand on the top of the open car door.

"Was just wondering…" he begins. "How opposed would you be if I kissed you again?"

She smiles at his choice of words, before closing the gap between them and rising to her toes to press her lips against his.

\---

The two carry on like that for the rest of the month, and the next, and the one after that; acting like nothing was going on between the two during the school hours, ravishing the other when alone.

And even though it goes against everything Annabeth has trained herself to believe, the thrill of it all near makes her near giddy.

\---

It's a cold Saturday morning, and she pads softly around the house on her woolen-socked feet, boiling the kettle and setting out two odd mugs before dropping a spoonful of ground coffee bean into each of them.

She doesn't expect her father to be awake – she's fairly sure he's snoring on a pile of his messily scrawled notes and open books, but she'll leave the mug there anyway, just to let him know she's there.

The kettle dings, watching as the steam rises and curls as it tears through the chilly morning air. She pours the water, and stirs a few times in either drink, before adding two spoonfuls of sugar and a dollop of cream to her own drink, a single spoon of sugar to her father's.

She leaves her own to cool as she climbs the spiral staircase of her house almost silently, nervously opening the door to her father's study to see him face down and asleep, just like she thought.

She moves a few sheets to make some room on the cluttered oak desk and sets the mug down, gently pulling the glasses off of his face - even though she thinks it's a bit late for that now, considering he has most likely slept like that for a good few hours - and folds them up to rest on the mug.

\---

"I'm starting to think you purposely get detentions in order to meet me after I get out of doing whatever I'm doing on the day," Annabeth says, kissing the tip of Percy's nose from her place above him.

"Therefore you hold a very high opinion of yourself, Miss Chase," is his reply, tightening his hold on her waist and smiling up at her.

"Oh, I know I do," she says matter-of-factly, grinning.

They had become intimate in more ways than one during their stolen moments and secret meetings that had been taking place in the past three months. Slowly, it had become more about being with the other than just the kisses and the touches and the general thrill of breaking the unspoken (and slightly pathetic) rule of high-school statuses.

He laughs from underneath her and she can feel the vibrations of the action against her chest. She peppers his face with kisses, soft and sweet, because although he looks intimidating and angry most of the time, she finds him to be completely and utterly adorable, which he's told her is an awful opinion to have of him, because he is terrifying. (She had laughed so hard her sides hurt when he pouted like a child who wasn't allowed sweets before dinner after she had grinned and told him " _sure_ ," in response.)

She's worried if it keeps going on like this; she'll end up in love with him.

She's even more worried she already is. 

\---

Piper and Thalia, arguably Annabeth's closest friends, had cornered her about her recent change in character and mood.

Annabeth guessed that all of her time she had recently spent with Percy had begun to rub off on her, and she dreaded to wonder if she had begun to swear as much as he did.

"We're not saying it's a bad thing," Piper had rushed out, her voice calm and reassuring like it always was, "in fact, we think its a really good thing! It's nice to see you happy and not so upti-"

Thalia had elbowed her in the gut at that point, momentarily glaring at her, like saying ' _we're meant to be nice about this, how is calling her uptight nice?'_ "What Piper means is that we're glad your happy and everything, we're just wondering why."

"Yeah," Piper interjected. "Just so we can thank the person who's making you smile a bit more."

"Why do you assume its a someone?" Annabeth asked.

"It isn't?" Piper asked, frowning slightly, looking a little confused and more than a bit put off. "I thought I was pretty good at this stuff," she said. "You know, relationships and that. You sure it's not a someone?"

"Pretty sure," Annabeth had replied, feeling like she was going to be sick just a little. She didnt like lying anyway, and not telling them important things like the fact she was sort of dating/sort of not dating Percy Jackson felt more than a little unnatural to her.

Piper looked like she was about to say something else, but Thalia tugged her a little by the elbow, a look that said _'leave it_ ' on her face.

"We'll see you later, yeah?" Thalia said, waving and making her way to her next class, the bell ringing just as she turned. Piper gave her one last look of apprehension, like she didn't believe her, before giving her a quick hug and walking away.

The sick feeling in her stomach didn't leave for the rest of the day. 

\---

They're in his car when she jokingly asks why he even has one.

"To go places?" he replies, looking at her strangely.

"Wow, really?" she asks, voice dripping with sarcasm. "What I meant was, shouldn't a guy like you have a motorbike or something like that? I thought it was code for punk guys to ride motorbikes so they have something cool to lean on while they smoke."

"I'm going to ignore that last part," he says. "But honestly, would you _really_ get on the back of my bike if I had one?"

"Don't reply to my questions with questions," she scolds playfully, flicking him on the forehead. "And don't sound so skeptical, I would be up for midnight rides and breaking speed limits on highly dangerous vehicles."

"Really?" he still sounds like he doesn't believe her.

"Yes," she huffs. "I'd get myself a leather jacket, so I could look the part. I think I can pull one off, don't you think?"

"You could pull anything off, no questions asked."

"Sweet," she says, nudging him with her shoulder. "I'd be your little blonde thing," she jokes, "riding around with you and looking hot. You could show me off to all of your friends and everything."

"Don't sell yourself short," he says. "You'd be much more than just my thing on the side."

"Who said anything about thing on the side?" she says, mouth open. "I just said I'd be your blonde thing, nothing about being on the side. Hell, you'd _worship_ me."

"So nothing would change then?" he teases.

"You'd have a motorbike and I'd have a leather jacket. I think those are pretty significant changes."

\---

She's pressed up against Percy's front door as soon as he pulls her inside, immediately going to kiss her.

"Why do we always end up at my house?" Percy asks against her neck, lips brushing the skin and his breath hot, turning the blood running through her veins into liquid fire.

"'Cause my dad's home. You can come to mine as soon as he goes to some conference halfway across the country."

She doesn't mean it to sound as bitter as it does.

He stops his work at her neck, bending down slightly the same way he did at the bar all those months ago to look her in the eyes.

"Y'okay?"

She rolls her eyes at the familiarity of the situation, and slips out from under him, walking to his living room and drops herself on to his beat up couch. She holds out her arms, a clear invitation for him to join her.

He does so, and she scoots onto his lap, shifting a bit to get comfy, and rests her head on his chest, links her fingers through his. He has a clean-cut black metal band on his thumb, and she twists the ring idly as she speaks.

"Yeah," she says. "Sorry."

"Is he not home much?"

Normally Annabeth avoided all conversation pertaining her family and how it functioned, for having an absent father and no memories of her mother was not the typical home life for a girl like her.

Girls like her had a loving mother who was friendly and funny and was the type of person her daughter could tell anything. Girls like her had a hardworking father who always made time for her, despite deadlines. Girls like her had a little sister who looked up to her and did everything she did, and had an older brother who would be prepared to beat up any boy who had the nerve to break his beloved little sister's heart.

"Oh, he's home plenty," she says, shifting so she could look him in the eyes as she spoke. "He just doesn't leave his study, and the rare times he does is to go on week long business trips. He's always working, and I just kind of feel he forgets about me a little."

He kisses her hair. "What about your mom?"

"I think she's dead," Annabeth says honestly. Whenever she had asked her father, he had never given her a straight answer about what had really happened to her. "Dad never really told me."

"Sorry," he says quietly, and she leans up so she can kiss him.

"Not your fault. What about your parents?"

The look that crosses his features makes Annabeth wish she hadn't asked.

"Dad fucked off before I was born, useless asshole. Left my mom to raise me alone."

"What's she like?" she asks softly, wishing he would look her in the eyes as he spoke.

"She was the best," he says, his voice breaking. She winced at the use of past tense. For lack of anything better to do, Annabeth pressed a hand to his face, thumb gently stroking along his cheekbone, just because she was didn't know how to help but knew all she wanted to do was comfort him. "We didn't have much money, but she did her best. Married this complete and utter _scum_ ," he spits, tears prickling in the corners of his eyes, Annabeth kissing them away before they could fall, "could've done so much better. She deserved a fucking _king_ , not some slimy, poker-playing weasel." He sounds choked, like he can't get enough air, caught on a sob that's caught in his throat. "Bastard hit her and all, like he even had the privilege to look upon her much less raise a hand to her."

She didn't like seeing him like this, looking helpless and alone, so different from his usual carefree and hard as nails demeanour. She wants to say something, do something more than comforting touches to let him know she was there.

"What happened?" she asks after a moment.

"Died when I was eleven. Didn't even get to say goodbye."

He cries then, the tears coming to fast for Annabeth to prevent them from falling, coughing and spluttering on ragged sobs that make his whole frame shudder.

"Shh," she hums, feeling like she were about to cry herself, pulling his head down to her shoulder and petting his hair. He bawls like a baby, clutching her tightly, like she was life preserver and he was a drowning victim. "I'm here."

\---

"Do your friends know about me?" he asks her in the darkness of his room, the only light from the streetlamps on the road outside his flat, and the occasional car that drove by. He'd long ago broke his alarm clock.

She turns herself to face him, his green eyes looking bluer in this light.

"No," she says. "Piper thinks something's up, Thalia too, but other than that, no."

"Oh," he says, averting his eyes.

"Why?" she asks, worming her way closer to him, enough to feel his breath on her face.

"Nothing," he says, flashing her a brief smile before closing his eyes. "Go to sleep."

She feels guilty for no reason (and that's a lie, she knows exactly why she feels guilty), and leans forward to press her lips to the junction between his neck and shoulder before dropping her head down on the pillow and closing her eyes.

She wants to tell him she loves him, but instead she says, "night."

\---

He isn't in all week.

She isn't surprised when she doesn't see him Monday, because she knows he has trouble adjusting to waking up after two days of sleeping in until two.

She worries a little when he isn't waiting for her after her council meeting, and feels a little empty and a lot lonely when she drives herself home and calls out an "I'm home!" after stepping inside, and getting no reply in response.

She can't focus all English lesson on Wednesday when she doesn't feel his eyes on her, or see him walk past her to get to his seat.

She wishes she had his number on Thursday, realizing how ridiculous it was that she didn't even have him as a contact on her phone yet he was probably the most important person to her, and had been for quite a while now.

She isn't herself on Friday, and her friends - not just Piper and Thalia this time - notice. She tells them that she's sick, and it's not technically a lie because she wants to throw up she's so worried about him. She knows he does stupid things for kicks, she's seen his cuts and bruises and various scars that pattern themselves along his body and she's terrified that the worst has happened. She's worried she upset him when she told him that no, her friends don't know about him, and considers telling them outright now, while she has their attention. She wouldn't even tone down their relationship, she'd tell them the full extent; tell them she tells herself she thinks but really she knows with all of her being that she's in love with him, tell them that she trusts him more than she's ever trusted anyone else in her life, tell them that she's worried sick he's done something reckless like he's wont to do and she just wants his number so she can call him and just make sure he's okay because she is so ridiculously stupid as to not have it saved on her phone.

She goes home at the end of the day and cries until her throat hurts, for lack of a better solution.

\---

She very nearly punches him when she sees him in school, early Monday morning. She doesn't, but she does storm up to him, despite the fact he's in the middle of a conversation with all of his friends, glaring daggers at him and demanding where the hell he's been, trying to not sound like she's about to start crying.

He looks momentarily shocked, whether surprised about the fact she noticed his disappearance or that she had just come up and spoke to him in the middle of the crowded school hallway, while he was with his friends, no less.

"Someone told me they thought motor biking would be cool," he begins, and only then does she seem to register the various limbs of his that were wrapped in plaster.

Her stomach drops and she has to bite her lip to stop the tears that have welled up in her eyes from falling. "You complete _idiot_ ," she growls, taking the arm that was in a cast and inspecting it, like she knew anything about broken bones. A messy blue sketch of waves crashing against each other already stains the coarse white of the plaster.

He winces when she pulls the arm closer to her, and she frowns, letting it go.

"Might've broken three of my ribs too," he says through clenched teeth.

"Why the hell are you even here then?" she asks incredulously. "Go home and get better!"

"Gotta make sure you don't miss me too much," he says, smiling down at her. "Couldn't let my little blonde thing get herself upset. Plus, all these bruises and bandages make me look hardcore as shit."

She exhales heavily. "You do know that if you die, I'm going to kill you."

"Don't doubt it," he says, grinning at her.

She hugs him delicately, as if he were made of glass, before leaving to get to her class.

"I mean it," she says as she walks away. 

\---

He's leaning against his car, holding his cigarette in his left hand and looking a bit put out; not used to using his left hand for menial tasks like writing and smoking. Annabeth thinks he looks unfairly cute.

Everyone's still filing out of the building, but she's far past the point of caring about what the other people will think of her if they see the two together.

When she approaches him, before he could even open his mouth she'd already asked, "Do you want to come to mine today?"

"Is your dad working?" he asked, looking confused. She notices a few heads turn in their direction, and she has to control the self-satisified smirk that wants to pull at her lips.

"No," she said, shrugging. "Just thought you might want to meet him."

"And why would I want to do that?"

"I thought it was sort of like the unwritten code of boyfriends to strive to be on good terms with their girlfriend's parents?"

It's the second time she's shocked him in a single day, and she rather likes it.

She likes it even more when, instead of a normal response, he drops his cigarette and hooks his good arm around her waist to pull her forward, quickly blowing a stream of smoke out of the corner of his mouth before kissing her so forcefully she couldn't think straight. She doesn't even mind the tangy taste of leftover tobacco on his tongue, and lets herself smile against him when she hears various intakes of breath around them.

"You sure?" he asks against her lips, and she can feel him smiling too.

"Positive. Who even cares about reputations anyway?"

He laughs as he kisses every inch of her face, and it's just about the best thing ever.


End file.
